In Progress

Yes, it is the rather pitiful truth that after swearing off doing mass amounts of free labor post two internships and countless other volunteer projects, the project that broke down my resolve to never again work for free was a labor conference.

Every free moment I’ve had for the past month has been consumed by planning and dealing with the logistics of the Internet as Playground and Factory conference, a conference about digital labor. As the volunteer coordinator, I was responsible for staffing and recording the 3 day conference at the New School. The event finally happened on Thursday to Saturday, and our team accomplished so much in that time.

Together, 26 volunteers provided full coverage for 24 different events over 3 days in 7 different locations in 4 buildings. We provided a staggering 266.5 hours of work over the two-and-a-half days, with many people working 8+ hour days. The video team deserves a special mention most of whom pulled 8 hour days both Friday and Saturday, sharing 3 sets of equipment among 6 people, trading cards between sessions and successfully covering 15 sessions without losing a single cable, card or camera. And in terms of the attendees, panelists and hosting institution, the event was a huge success, as well as seeming to be an important marker in labor studies.

Was it worth it? Well, so far, I’m not really sure. My interest in volunteering in the first place was to be more intimately involved in the experience, and to be able to network with panelists and get really familiar with the arena of labor studies, particularly in the digital space. By that measure, my experience was a complete and utter failure. Since I was command post for all questions, problems, and fixes, I didn’t get to attend a single session, so I didn’t learn ANYTHING about the field academically.

I volunteered myself for this project with pretty high hopes, but ultimately it ended in the familiar experience of taking volunteer jobs as a way to push forward professionally, but without the anticipated payoff. Similarly, my internships have been less than the key to professional advancement I expected them to be. And while one volunteer experience turned into a regular consulting job, I was never paid at a competitive level, which I suspect is in part due to its free origins debasing its value for my clients.

In my experience, volunteer labor as a means of professional development is not adequately valued, an issue which has been written about in a New York Times series on internships by Douglas Martin and Anya Kamenetz among others. I know IPF included at least one session on extremely cheap labor that is essentially free in Second Life, and I hope they addressed strictly volunteer labor as well. I should add, there is a big difference between casual volunteering, like reading stories at your local library or helping with a fundraiser on the day of, versus being a part-time employee who just doesn’t get paid. And I’m definitely talking about the latter type of volunteering.

So this conference has left me a little sadder as I catch my breath before trying vainly to catch up in my three graduate classes, while teaching a 1.5 hour class to English Language Learners (also unpaid) and leading data research on an animation project at Eyebeam (also, you guessed it, unpaid). One of my few consolations is that I will be presenting a paper at the MLA conference at the end of the year, and will have a chance to immerse myself in a conference the way I want to — hearing interesting people talk about interesting subjects, and being able to engage in dialogue with them.

It would be remiss in me to not mention my other major consolation, which was recruiting, meeting, and working with the volunteers for this conference. Being part of a team is a really nice feeling, one I miss from my old days doing policy events and strategic communications full-time. And this team was one of the nicest I’ve worked with. The student life can be one of isolation, writing papers that engage in private conversations with often dead scholars and seen by a single professor, who may write only perfunctory comments back to you. Having the chance to hear everyone discuss the sessions they worked and saw was a pleasure, and I’m glad I got to be a part of that.

Will I stop doing big volunteer projects? I guess it depends on whether people stop doing really awesome things I want to be a part of. So come on people, stop being all creative and interesting! Right now. Stop it.

Posted on November 15th, 2009 by DeepthiW
Filed under: Global Culture, Media, Participatory Culture, Politics, School